The inclusion of Jesus on Christmas

Last night at youth group I heard more students say it was their favorite night than ever before... we made ginger bread houses. It was pretty sweet.

We actually began this tradition when I began here (I carried it over from my former church) and my favorite part of the evening is that the students learn without realizing it. Most students are familiar with the Christmas story, most have a nativity set at home and realize the meaning of the Christmas carols to some degree... but few students hear the story with a message other than God gives us a gift, we give others gifts too. So in this event we pick a theme and let the students explore the story and create a sugary diorama of what they see and hear in the story.

We began the evening with a warm up game similar to mad gab where students tried to identify Christmas-themed clues. It was a good game without any movement, and fit nicely in our evening for about 10 minutes of fun.

Then we invited a senior to share her faith story which happened to be about inclusion and exclusion. Meredith identified the most beautiful parts of the youth group - a welcoming place in a world where so many are excluded. Her story was powerful because she is such a high achiever that no one would have guessed that she has felt so excluded, so often in life. And in our church. It was a good story of her life and her passion for God and how she sees God involved in the inclusive ministry at youth group.

We built on Meredith's theme throughout the evening by moving into the next room and getting ready for our gingerbread competition. We call it a competition to add a little urgency and purpose to our designs. This year each group was assigned one of three stories from Matt or Luke about Christmas. And each team was first asked to identify the inclusion and exclusion aspects of the story. and then create a diorama that depicts that scene and theme.

30 minutes later our students were messy, but cleaning up and moving their sugary displays around to show off to others. We invited a representative from each team to share in front of the group what elements they chose to include and why, and then assigned three adults to pick favorites (for bragging rights only).

We still had 15 minutes at the end of the night to sing a few Christmas carols, pray and bless each other!